Defensive NFL players have found an unlikely ally in retired quarterback and Fox Sports analyst Tom Brady.
Irritated by what he viewed as questionable roughing and unnecessary roughness penalties in Detroit, Brady blasted head referee Alex Moore’s crew during the Lions’ 20-17 win over the Green Bay Packers.
‘No, my goodness,’ the incredulous Brady said after Lions quarterback Jared Goff drew a questionable roughing-the-passer call on Packers defensive tackle Karl Brooks in the fourth quarter. ‘What is that?! There’s no way!… That’s definitely not roughing the passer!
‘You’re just ripping through the line of scrimmage to try to get the quarterback on the ground,’ Brady continued. ‘Look, I love Goff standing there in the pocket, but you just can’t tack it on 15 yards.’
Fox rules analyst Dean Blandino agreed.
‘That’s teach-tape tackle,’ Blandino said, likening the hit to footage from an instructional tape. ‘That’s not roughing the passer.’
Defensive NFL players have found an unlikely ally in retired quarterback Tom Brady
Aidan Hutchinson sacks Jordan Love on Sunday in Detroit. Officials did not flag this hit
The penalty moved Detroit across midfield and helped to set up the game-winning field goal as time expired.
Earlier in the fourth, Lions linebacker Derrick Barnes was on the wrong end of a similarly egregious call when he made negligible contact with Packers running back Marshawn Lloyd as an incomplete pass fell to the turf.
‘What?’ the stunned Brady asked. ‘There’s no way.’
Alas, Barnes was flagged for unnecessary roughness
‘Come on,’ Brady continued. ‘[Packers quarterback Jordan] Love throws it over the middle. There’s linebackers in the middle. He’s just turning his right shoulder away from it. That’s allowed 99 out of 100. It’s a bang-bang play. I know in super [slow motion] every little frame looks like a lot, but when you’re on the field, you’ve got to pursue that ball.’
Complaints about officiating on such calls have been a decades-long struggle for NFL defenders as the league tries to improve safety while maintaining competitiveness.
Former Houston Texans defensive end JJ Watt has been vocal about the problem, as has current Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons, who specifically called out Moore’s crew after the game.
‘[Let’s] just go to flag football if everytime (sic) a qb gets touched it’s roughing the passer!’ Parsons wrote on X, while tagging the league and its officials.
In addition to Barnes, Green Bay’s Brenton Cox Jr also received a roughing-the-passer penalty as well on Sunday.
Furthermore, the Packers’ Davonte Wyatt was also flagged for a personal foul after tackling a ball carrier into an official. It’s unclear if he could hear if the play had been whistled dead beforehand.
‘We ruled that the play was over,’ Moore told a pool reporter after the game. ‘I can’t honestly hear if there was a whistle or not, but the tackler made the tackle, the play was over. Then, there was an additional action, and he basically tackled him again with force after the play was over.’
